If your child or someone you know has been diagnosed with Attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD), there is a high probability that they have been misdiagnosed. As many as 75% of diagnoses could be wrong, this high figure could be even higher if the child is a boy.
ADHD cases have grown at an unbelievable rate over the past ten years. With these cases, of course that means that the prescriptions to treat ADHD have also grown at this rate too. However, the diagnoses is not scientific, unclear and even biased.
Psychotherapist are constantly diagnosing ADHD incorrectly, three out of four cases, studies have shown. Swiss researchers found this higher if the child was a boy. In a study involving almost 500 therapist, girls with the exact same symptoms as the boys were told they did not have ADHD, and twice as many boys were wrongfully diagnosed and given a powerful drug to treat them. 
Researchers are urging parents to seek second, third, and fourth opinions before allowing your child to take these drugs. Therapist need to carry out appropriate scientific test and not rely only on their hunches before giving an ADHD diagnosis.
I have been to seminars on this topic, and some are pro drugs and some are against them for ADHD. As a parent with a child that was suspected of having ADHD, I suggest that you do your home work before believing the first thing you hear from a teacher or doctor. Nobody knows your child better than you do. Also, consider your family history and traits they might have inherited. When I was young, being a kid was much different than it is today. We did not spend hours sedentary, most of my day was spent outdoors. I grew up on a farm eating natural non processes foods, now kids barely have anything natural and healthy all three meals of the day. Think about how old this world is and wonder how in the world children got along before the drug companies invented drugs for ADHD?! Perhaps the kids with higher energy were the best helpers with yard work back then. They were the best athletes with the endurance to be more active than some of the other kids. Some how our species has carried on with higher energy kids without drugs for a long time.
I am not saying that ADHD does not exist. It is a condition that for some does require medication. I am only pointing out that this diagnoses is given incorrectly to 75% of the children that are screened for it, and only 25% that are screened are scientifically proven to have ADHD. This is not fair to the children that do have it because they can not get the individual attention they need when mixed in with the majority of their classmates that have been told they have it too.
Consider the foods your child is eating. Kids with higher blood glucose levels show similar signs that children with ADHD have and this could be one reason for a misdiagnoses. Many hyperactive kids also have visible symptoms of essential fat deficiency, such as dry skin, eczema, asthma, and excessive thirst. Omega 3 fatty acids have a calming affect on many kids with high energy kids. I would suggest getting an IgE and IgG food allergy test done on your child and altering their diet, before going straight to prescription medications for their hyperactivity. This route worked for me and my family.
What are your experiences with ADHD? Do you know someone with this? Have you tried alternative routes? Please share your experiences and thoughts!
ADHD is most likely caused by poor nutrition, food allergies or food additives (although not always)
Also, L-Theanine has shown to be a great help in developing calm and focus to those who are affected. My 23 year old stepson has been taking and it does seem to help.
Thank you so much for that info!
It definitely runs in our family. My mom, my daughter and my ex have it. My other daughter has autism. Yes, food can affect us, but for some cases, there’s no guessing at it. You can see it when they walk through the door. Where did you get your statistics? I’m just curious.
I studied nutrition in college and learned where food comes in. Also, once my daughter was suspected of having ADHD I went to three seminars on it as well joining moms groups that have children with this.
This whole thing is close to scandalous as is the prescribing of antidepressants to many adults. These are serious drugs and if you look closely they often are not tested for longer than a couple months or so and are very heavily pushed by drug companies. I think the science is highly questionable and the whole idea of “chemical imbalances in the brain” seems unsupported by hard scientific evidence. Show me the science proving THAT and the tests that measure these supposed imbalances that “cause” depression and hyperactivity. Science barely understands the nature and source of human consciousness yet depression is caused by one or two neurotransmitters being “out of balance”?? Billions are made off these. Its frightening to have young brains and minds filled with these potent drugs. Please challenge your doctors’ recommendations.
Hear, hear! I’m extremely skeptical of the efficacy of psychotropic drugs. I think ADHD is to large degree simply a re-labeling of “kids being kids” as a “medical condition” to serve as justification to prescribe more drugs.
I would be interested to know your references for the information included in this blog post.
I have a son who was diagnosed when in 2 nd grade by a therapist and psychologist/psyhciatrist. Put him on meds, crashed every night, changed drugs still looked to drugged up. Couldn’t stand that look. Took him off. As he got older he would get in a lot of fights, could’ve been just adolecenct boy thing. Never tried the checking the diet way, but as he started playing sports( football mostly) I saw him change for the better, maybe he got all his aggression out on the field I don’t know. Now he’s 22 goes to the gym everyday and seems to be doing fine.
Just another view, all kids have different personalities, and my 1st and third are calmer. Maybe he is just more aggressive. He always reaches his goals no matter how tough they are he won’t give up, very determined. His father is the same way, very successful.
Here’s another view, when I grew up some kids were just bad tempered, they weren’t given drugs, just punishment, maybe we give our children too many excuses!
I understand where you are coming from and I agree that inactivity is a part of the problem and diet is probably an additional part. This includes parental nutrition as well as the child’s. TV and video games have been shown to decrease a child’s attention span so there’s another thing to be very careful with. Children use to be given coffee or something like that which will also calm them down instead of being medicated so there’s another part of the picture. These children also need to be taught self control because the drugs only make it easier for the child to make good choices. By the way these drugs speed normal people up. They only calm a select group of people. I found this piece to be very one sided and short on facts. I have no idea if your child needs to be treated for ADHD or not but I do know that they help many children have a normal life. This does include members of my family who also took red die and a number of other things away from the treated child and helped them learn self control.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD and I didn’t agree. He was just a normal very active boy. A lot like me when I was a child. I took him to a different Dr and he agreed with me that my son wasn’t ADHD he just needed to slow down and learn to focus. He used a program called Interactive-metronome and it was really successful in helping my son re-train his brain to slow down and focus. His grades improved, not more fights on the playground, and he listened and followed directions mush better! It was amazing! I was very surprised that it worked so well. Interactive -metronome is really worth a try if you have a child that could be diagnosed incorrectly with ADHD.
Mary, it’s awesome to hear about your success with Interactive-metronome. I’m taking my son this afternoon to establish if he is eligible for interactive-metronome therapy. He was recently diagnosed with ADHD and my husband and I are very skeptical about the diagnosis. He is all boy and never stops moving but, very bright. We have never had a report from a teacher concerning his academic skill, just his behavior that might interfere with his learning. I’m hoping this is the answer we have been looking for. Can you tell me how long before your son improved his focus?
Christine, it was quite some time ago, but as I recall the improvements started after only a few sessions. He sat with a monitor & game and it reminded me of the atari game pong….computer tennis like game. It was like bio feed back in that he had to concentrate to slow the tennis ball down and get more points. If he didn’t he’d have to start over. Then he used a metronome like dance pad to clap and keep a beat and that helped with focus and concentration also! HE WAS NEARLY SUSPENDED FROM SCHOOL FOR FIGHTING AND LACK OF SELF CONTROL HAD ALWAYS BEEN A BIG ISSUE. tHAT IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY ALSO 🙂 I hope your child gets a great deal of improvement from it also! My son is 22 now and did the sessions when he was 12 or 13. It was a god send and I was so happy we helped him with out medcation.
My son who is now a MD was often labeled as ADD and I had people question me why I didn’t put him on medication. There was nothing wrong with my son besides the fact that he was a BOY, a highly-energetic and extremely intelligent boy. He just graduated from medical school. He was his high school class’s valedictorian, number one in his undergraduate program and number one second, third and fourth year in med school. That energy that his fourth grade teacher wanted to stifle is the reason he was able to be a student council officer, a starter on the football team and still carry over a 4.0 grade point average as a boy. As a married medical student, he needed that energy to make it through grueling study sessions and to be able to focus his studying once he was a Dad and a med student. His little girl was born in Jan. a full year and four months before he graduated from med school. I told his teachers when he was a little boy what they saw as negative was actually going to be the reason he would succeed as an adult. I’m not one who goes back and says, “Told ya so, but I sure would have liked to!” lol
As a PA I’ve worked with several physicians that actually have ADHD themselves. Children with ADHD make excellent doctors because they are able to go from one thing to the next to the next while thinking about how all of the information gathered works together to form a diagnosis and treatment.
I couldn’t agree more, the over prescribing of drugs is something that has bothered me for a long time in our culture. A friend of mine was diagnosed as having ADHD 10 years ago but he never had the medication. Today, he is perfectly fine; this is definitely a case when the diagnosis was wrong!
My son was diagnosed with ADHD and my husband and I fought the medication for 2 years before we gave it to him. He is an extremely bright young man who just needs a little help controlling his impulsivity. I am hoping to get him off the meds eventually and help him learn to control his ADHD rather than allow it to control him! As his mother it is my job to help him become successful in life so I make it my business to provide all the resources possible. We have hired a Nutritionist recently and the change in his diet has helped tremendously! His medication is more affective and lasts longer throughout the day as well.